Well, it was a catholic school after all. If she really thought she could keep her job after announcing that she was going to marry her partner, she isn't very smart. Maybe she just wanted to start a protest movement. The catholic church continues to discriminate against gays, everyone knows that, and it's policies are not likely to change anytime soon.

With all due respect toward the many wonderful jobs our LGBT educators in private hyper-religious-based schools do, given the advances in public and other private employment in the past decade, these particular news articles are starting to come across like: "Man Lives With and Feeds Venomous Snake for Years with No Problems; Finally Gets Bitten."

robbaker saidNo the school didn't fire her because of her sexual orientation it's because she doesn't know how to teach .most teachers can't anyways and they definitely can't teach anyone common sense since most teachers lack that themselves.she was probably too busy glued to her iPhone like most of todays generation are.humans are going to be replace by robots soon. And were going to become like the walking dead.

And your speculations ("she doesn't know how to teach"; "most teachers can't [teach] anyways and they definitely can't teach anyone common sense since most teachers lack that themselves"; "probably too busy glued to her iPhone") are based on WHAT exactly? Do you have any proof about this particular teacher? Or about "most" teachers?

robbaker saidNo the school didn't fire her because of her sexual orientation it's because she doesn't know how to teach .most teachers can't anyways and they definitely can't teach anyone common sense since most teachers lack that themselves.she was probably too busy glued to her iPhone like most of todays generation are.humans are going to be replace by robots soon. And were going to become like the walking dead.

And your speculations ("she doesn't know how to teach"; "most teachers can't [teach] anyways and they definitely can't teach anyone common sense since most teachers lack that themselves"; "probably too busy glued to her iPhone") are based on WHAT exactly? Do you have any proof about this particular teacher? Or about "most" teachers?

Adding to the "she doesn't know how to teach!" flawed speculation: The employee in this case had not even started working at the school yet. (Plus, she was hired as a college counselor, not a teacher, a technicality TNCRM missed).

She was hired before the summer and then, once she revealed she was lesbian and in a relationship during the summer, withdrew the job offer offered a year's severance... in exchange for her silence on the terms and acceptance of a "heart-felt" script written by the church on why she's no longer going to be employed there.

No matter what place of employment you run, you don't run off "bad" employees with a year's severance pay... especially when they haven't spent a day in front of your consumers yet. Not unless you realize, deep down, the problem isn't the employee.

The New Civil Rights MovementWhen 27-year-old Lauren Brown got a teaching job at St. Mary’s Catholic prep school in Portland, Oregon, she thought her life was falling into place.

Her job offer stated that the school was “so excited that you will be a part of this legacy.”

And then after she told an official at the school she was gay, and asked her what would happen if she got married, she was asked to come in for a meeting. The school gave her a letter rescinding her offer and offering her severance pay – a full year's salary – in return for her silence on the matter.

The letter also asked Brown to agree not to sue and to not “disclose such terms” to anyone except family members, attorneys, and accountants.

They even had the gall to script her Facebook message for her, with a heart emoticon included.

“However, Brown may post on her social media pages the following statement to describe her separation from St. Mary’s: “Friends, I want to let you all know that I will no longer be at St. Mary’s in the fall. Please message me if you know of any jobs available <3," the letter reads.

The 27-year-old from Bloomington, Ind., graduated in 2010 with a math degree from Lewis & Clark College.

She made such a strong impression that Lewis & Clark hired her right after graduation to work in the admissions department, where her boss says she excelled.

After five years there, Brown decided she wanted to work more directly with students and decided to take a pay cut to work at St. Mary’s as a college counselor.

St. Mary’s has long been one of the state’s top prep schools. Although the downtown Portland all-girls’ high school is Catholic, St. Mary’s served girls from all backgrounds since its founding in 1859. The school’s mission statement pledges “a diverse community” with a “dedication to social justice.”

Brown was thrilled in April when St. Mary’s offered her a job for the fall term. “I honestly visualized my entire life there during my interview,” she says. “Retirement seems like the only reason anyone ever leaves St. Mary’s.”

Then, during the summer, Brown told a top school official that she was gay. That changed everything.

Documents Brown shared with WW show St. Mary’s withdrew its job offer this month—and promised Brown a year’s salary and benefits to keep her quiet.

It could be that some RJ users did have teachers so bad they didn't teach them how to read before opining (either that, or the RJ student was too busy bullying while the teachers were doing their job), thus they shake their fists at teachers en-masse as an "adult."

metta8 said^I thought this one was a little different...with the school adding a sexual orientation policy. I think that is a step in the right direction.

I agree that it's newsworthy in that respect. I think the CYA actions by the school to make this a feel-good PR story (including the Facebook message scripting) was more newsworthy than the otherwise liberal Catholic School's revised policy.

For a school so committed to "social justice", it would have been nice for them to have had the forethought to have such a policy in place before applicants arrived at their doorstep.

Like ArtDeco suggested, it's probably best to hold off and see where this new policy goes. Plenty of well-meaning "policies" such as this get slapped down once word reaches the red-caped loons at the Vatican. If it survives, we'll have to wait to see if and how it's used: "Sure, we'll hire you... but don't let the students find out/get married/have kids!" is the way they have traditionally shaken out.

robbaker saidNo the school didn't fire her because of her sexual orientation it's because she doesn't know how to teach .most teachers can't anyways and they definitely can't teach anyone common sense since most teachers lack that themselves.she was probably too busy glued to her iPhone like most of todays generation are.humans are going to be replace by robots soon. And were going to become like the walking dead.

Man can you get any dumber with your unreasonable generalizations combined with your childish ranting